1. Life and art of Salvador Dali.
2. THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY. 1931. Oil on canvas. 25 cm x 36 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y.
3. DALI ATOMICUS, a surrealistic photograph of Dali in his studio, was taken by Philippe Halsman.

 Salvador DALI, (1904-89) was a Spanish painter, writer, and member of the Surrealist movement. He was born in Figueras, Catalonia, and educated at the School of Fine Arts, Madrid.
  Despite all that was written by and about him, Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali remained a mystery as a man and as an artist. A curious blend of reality and fantasy characterized both his life and his works.
   In the Catalonian town of Figueras, near Barcelona, Dali was born on May 11, 1904. His family encouraged his early interest in art; a room in the family home was the young artist's first studio. In 1921 Dali enrolled at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. There he joined an avant-garde circle of students that included filmmaker Luis Bunuel and poet-dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca. Although Dali did very well in his studies, he was expelled from school because of his eccentric dress and behavior.
   It was at this time that Dali came under the influence of two forces that shaped his philosophy and his art. The first was Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious. The second was his association with the French surrealists, a group of artists and writers led by the French poet Andre Breton. In 1928, with the help of the Spanish painter Joan Miro, Dali visited Paris for the first time and was introduced to the leading surrealists. The next year he settled there, becoming in a short time one of the best-known members of the group. After 1929 he espoused Surrealism ( modern movement, of French origin, in literature and art, aiming at unrestrained expression of subconscious thought; outgrowth of Freudian psychology), although the leaders of the movement later denounced Dalí as too commercial. Dalí's paintings from this period depict dream imagery and everyday objects in unexpected forms, such as the famous limp watches in The Persistence of Memory (1931, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Dalí moved to the United States in 1940, where he remained until 1948. His later paintings, often on religious themes, are more classical in style. They include Crucifixion (1954, Metropolitan Museum, New York) and The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Under the influ